The Alexandria Obelisk is safely paaked in its sea-going easel
and by this date the strange vessel is probably. rigged. In fact, there is every prospect that it will arrive in the Thames long beforeit is wanted, or people know what, to do with the embarrassing block. Opinion is pretty unanimous that it will be a, monstro- sity and a mote in the eyes of people of good-tasbei in the posi- tion where the Board of Works has set up the wooden model for criticism. It would be. dwarfed there by its vicinity to. the Clock Tower and the Abbey, and it would be quite out of keeping with the statues of Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston and Gothic architecture. The Horse Guards will not have it on the parade in St. James's Park, where it would be
in the way of the troops ; and if it were set up in front of the
British Museum, as has been suggested, it would be lost sight of amid the closely-surrounding buildings. Does not this difficulty show that it is a mistake to treat the gift as a possible civic orna- ment ? Ancient scraps stuck in modern surroundings are—as witness Virginia Water—generally poor in effect, and their true home is a museum. As things look at present, London is likely to have two awkward antiques, in the shape of Cleopatra's Needle and Temple Bar, on its hands. Would any of our Colonies like to buy them, as a souvenir of the old country ?
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